This issue hopes to bring to our readers some of the diversities
related to the discipline of history. Jaya Sinha Tyagi's contribution
explores the way brahminical texts confined women to the household and
expected them to be controlled by males within it. Simultaneously, women
were hierarchised within the household, with the incoming bride being
privileged over the daughters. Sinha Tyagi delineates how the compilers
of these texts saw the vital role played by the household to maintain
social order. As argued, these patriarchal texts hoped to confine women
to the household, incorporate and hierarchise them. Consequently, while
aiming to harness the specialised function of women related to
reproduction, brahminical patriarchy marginalized women. The fact that
some of these perceptions have survived up to the present times makes
this contribution particularly relevant.

Amar Farooqui takes up the serious linkages between colonialism and
opium production for scrutiny. As discussed, the East India Company
extended monopoly over opium production. It bought opium directly from
the producers and processed it in its own establishments. In fact, the
Company brands assumed distinct identities as 'Benaras opium' and `Patna
opium'. This opium was then auctioned to private dealers who took the
risk of smuggling it to China. Explaining the trade rivalries, Farooqui
refers to the Malwa opium-produced mostly in the Indian states-and how
the Company intervened to establish monopoly over it. As argued, the
higher content of morphine in the Malwa opium not only created a large
market for it, but also contributed towards making people addicted to
it. What is rather remarkable is the way the neo-colonial order of the
US is involved in the production and marketing of narcotics today, which
perhaps demonstrates the lessons learnt from Britain's experience in
colonial India.

The next three contributions are by young researchers. Neema Cherian
focuses on the social history of `camp followers' in the colonial army.
She delineates the `amorphous' term used to define a range of the
labouring caste groups of the poor, which was recruited to serve the
army in the cantonments. Examining the prostitutes and wine
distillers/vendors, who were labelled as `racial pollutants', she

++Page 2 Social Scientist

mentions the rhetoric of exclusion that aimed to restrict them in the
`pure' zones of the white army. Cherian shows how this `ordering' of
the cantonments invoked race and class. As argued, the policy did not
work - a feature that is borne out by an increase in alcoholism, and
venereal diseases among the white soldiers of the colonial army, as well
as the number of orphan children in the military orphan schools.

Rahul Ramagudam's contribution takes up the khadi movement for
scrutiny. Situated against the destruction of the traditional industries
in India, the charkha and the khadi produced by it emerged
as major weapons in the hands of the early nationalists and Gandhi.
Ramgudam elaborates some of the features associated with the khadi
movement, which acquired 'an identity of being a commodity of
exceptional times'. Simultaneously, he refers to some of the inner
contradictions generated by the actual functioning of the All India
Spinner's Association. As argued, even `while it professed to be a
philanthropic enterprise it was run like any other commercial firm'.

The last contributor, Anjali Bhardwaj, takes up the theme of the
partition of the sub-continent. She weaves in her contribution through
the life stories of those women who had crossed over to India. Her
article explores the way their life has been re-shaped by an event that
many of them had not understood at that time. Bhardwaj examines how
these women have survived and sustained their families over these years.
Her contribution illustrates the possibilities of oral history, besides
reiterating the importance of gender history.